


Before Sunrise

by Mab (Mab_Browne)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Case Fic, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 19:01:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mab_Browne/pseuds/Mab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Blair meet up again some two years after the dissertation debacle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the TS Ficathons community on Live Journal, in April 2006. My title and some of my plot idea came from a romance novel of the same name by Diana Palmer, as it was a Harlequin Romance challenge that year.

Jim was always an early riser, and at this time of the year, oh-six-hundred was still a little before sunrise. He threw on yesterday's clothes, which weren't so bad, and he wasn't going to wear them for that long. He picked up the duffle bag with gym gear in one hand, the hanger with his shirt and pants carefully draped over it in the other.

The drive was quiet, the traffic steady but not yet crazy. He liked mornings as much as he liked anything, he guessed; the quiet hum of the world waking up, the way that the shape and colour of the city changed as the light broke over it. He nodded at the gym regulars, and sweated his way through his usual workout, sluiced off in the showers, changed into his fresh clothes.

Breakfast was a couple of bagels, and a juice from a small booth that specialised in concocting weird and exotic mixtures. He had his favourites, and the woman who worked there, Sharine, wasn't it, had given up trying to convince him to try the specials and the new items. He bought coffee - nothing was going to convince him to drink the swill at the PD. Sometimes he spared a memory and a smile for Simon and his specialty brands, but then he'd get back to his usual morning review of the work in front of him.

This morning he didn't have the chance to sort through his paperwork. Captain Schreiber called him in, briefed him with the basics and sent him out with Rebecca Courson to investigate a body found lying in the middle of some farmer's field. They took Courson's car, which was fine with Jim.

The crime scene was maybe an hour's drive once they were past the mesh of the inner city, in an area of mainly weekend getaways and hobby farms. Courson grinned, her narrow eyes seamed by the lines around them. "This takes me back. My favourite uncle ran beef. I used to spend my vacations with him and his family pretty often."

Jim surveyed the field, which was already flanked by a bevy of police cruisers and the unmarked cars of their small forensic staff. "Bet his taste in vehicles ran more to John Deere than Ford." The ground, he noted, was well dug around, and it seemed to him that there were more markers than he expected.

Courson set off across the ground. "What, Jim, you don't think that Ford makes tractors too?" Her long legs stalked across the grass like a crane's, and they made their way to the tarp covered area that marked the corpse's location. Paul Kendrick from the Coroner was already there. He smiled a cursory greeting. "Glad it's you two. I've knocked heads with Ha enough this year."

Courson shrugged. "Detective Ha has a rape case."

"Poor bitch," Kendrick muttered. "Well, there he is. Work your detective magic." The victim was wrapped in a blue tarpaulin, his body roughly curled in rigor. "Carried here from somewhere else. Shot to the heart. Just what we need."

Jim considered the pathetic remnant. "Who found him?"

"The property owner." Kendrick jerked his head in the direction of a man in his forties standing by the cruisers. He had thinning hair and an expression that mixed dazed shock with the self-importance of being in the middle of someone else's catastrophe.

"Guess we'd better introduce ourselves."

The man, Kingsley Bruere, was volubly willing to assist the enquiry. The problem wasn't so much getting him to talk as keeping him to the topic. Jim reached his questions about the state of the field.

"There's been a fair amount of excavation here. Are you looking to develop the land?"

"Oh no," Bruere stated. "That's the mess that the kids from the university made. Apparently this land was a 'point of indigenous settlement' and I was just running a few sheep in there so I didn't mind when they wanted to do a dig. My wife spins, you know. And my kids had fun watching it all." Jim nodded his understanding and avoided all thought of any university kids that he might have known. He noted the information as yet another lead to be followed through.

The morning passed. The scene was fully inspected; the victim's lack of ID was confirmed; Jim and Courson worked out a game plan that took account of any number of variables, the first being the speed at which they could identify the victim, who looked to be about in his early twenties. They went back to the PD, reported to Schreiber, carried out the usual protocols, organised the appropriate liaisons.

Towards late afternoon a couple in their late fifties were escorted into the office. They'd come in to report their son missing, and when Jim noted the broad lines of the woman's face and the shape of the man's hands, he had a feeling that their victim wasn't going to be unidentified for much longer.

Courson had become the department's unofficial breaker of hard news, a role Jim suspected that she resented, but there was no denying that she was good at it. She had a knack of respectful silence, which she used to observe as she escorted two fearful people to the morgue. When she returned their victim had a name - Douglas Scott Williams - and parents and a history.

It was late when Jim got home. He defrosted some home-made stew, stirred some frozen vegetables into it, reheated it all and ate it piping-hot while he sat on the couch and watched ESPN. He washed his dishes and left the small kitchen space immaculate as ever before he showered and went to bed.

It wasn't, he supposed, a bad life. He did useful work, had good colleagues, a comfortable home. It was as normal as a police detective's life was ever going to be. The Department was small, for a small city, and he didn't care that he was probably never going to rise above detective because he'd always liked the hands-on work and he had even less patience for politics than Sandburg ever had. He turned restlessly. He had a good enough life, and his senses seldom bothered him now.

Occasionally he wondered if some evil little wind had carried some of his private thoughts and words to Sandburg's ears. Certainly, he'd seemed to think that what Jim wanted and needed was a normal life, one that wasn't messed up with hyper-senses and indiscreet graduate students and problematical dissertations. Blair had thought that was what he was buying with the press conference and its aftermath, and Jim was forced to accept the gift - even though he'd figured out early, but way too late, that it sure as hell wasn't what he wanted after all.

***

The first time was three days after Veronica and Ray Aldo killed each other.

Jim was purportedly watching the tv while he bitterly tried to extract his memories of his friends from his memories of the criminals who had tried to use him as a patsy. Alan's taste in beer, and Veronica and her gracefully theatrical gestures - it was all mixed up now with memories of a dock at night, and blood on a pale carpet. He felt like a fool and he supposed that he ought to be used to that by now.

Blair puttered. He had laundry to fold, and students' papers to grade, and tea to make, and all these things meant that he tended to be where Jim was. Jim knew that an invitation to talk was open, as it was always open from Blair, but he had nothing to say. He stared in the direction of the tv instead, and accepted occasional mugs of tea and decaf coffee. The third time that evening that Blair came around to the front of the couch, Jim looked up in irritation. Any more drinks and he could float the Queen Mary and he planned on saying so. Blair stood there, looking entirely miserable, and Jim bit back an enquiry as to when his dog had died. He wasn't at all ready when Blair said, "Ah, damn it, Jim," and bent to hug him within warm, solid arms.

Jim wasn't at all ready. Maybe that was why he turned his face in hard to Blair's torso and hung on tight, not crying or speaking, but just hanging on tight. Blair remained awkwardly bent over, crooning softly as if Jim was crying, and stroking one hand over Jim's head. And then his hands stroked across Jim's shoulders and back, and Jim nuzzled his face across the soft flannel of Blair's shirt. Blair pulled back and looked Jim in the face before he descended to the couch with the determination of a kamikaze pilot getting into the cockpit, and undid the buttons of Jim's shirt.

They lay on the couch, each man with the other's cock in his hand, Jim's face buried in Blair's hair and skin, because after that first look between them he wasn't sure he was brave enough for any more. And when it was finished, Jim kissed Blair on the temple and cleaned up and went upstairs to his bedroom alone. It was wrong, he knew that, to associate Blair's warm body against his with the memory of Veronica's, but he felt flayed, and inclined to trust absolutely nobody, including himself.

It didn't happen often, but it did happen again a few times. One time Blair leaned up on an elbow and opened his mouth to say something, and Jim put his palm over Blair's mouth. Blair sighed and subsided back against Jim's body. The last time it happened - Jim had gone down on Blair, startled and pleased by just how much he loved doing it. There was how much Blair had loved it too. He'd moaned and muttered, and the last thing he said before he came in Jim's mouth was, `love you, love you so much.' Jim wasn't fazed. When people made sex-dazed declarations he didn't hold it against them. But he felt readier to start thinking about what this thing, this occasional, comforting sex meant; what it might mean for the future. He felt a lot less of a fool - until a reporter asked him how the publication of Mr Sandburg's book would affect his work at the police department.

***

Courson's long, freckled face was rueful. "So Jim, do you want to take this exciting list of contacts, or this exciting list of contacts?"

"What am I up for?"

"Basically calling one hell of a lot of people at Rainier University, or chasing up whoever had contact with Williams at the Macpherson City Heritage Protection and Resource Centre."

"I'll take the Resource Centre." He hoped that he said it smoothly enough.

"Here you go. Have fun."

Jim cast his eye down the sheet of paper. Douglas Williams had been doing archaeology at Rainier. Cue the dig, which Jim found ironic enough to be not quite amusing. His parents lived in Macpherson City, and he had apparently been doing research work for the Heritage Protection Resource Centre during the summer break. And since there was no obvious reason for anybody to kill Douglas Williams, practically everybody he knew had to be investigated.

Jim found something really not at all amusing. The position of HPRC co-ordinator was filled by B (no middle initial) Sandburg. He told himself that it was just annoying coincidence, but straightaway logged into the DMV database. Blair Sandburg, DOB 24 May 1969, registered within the state some six months ago. It could be someone else. Jim told himself that before he swiped a palm over his face, and tried to figure out exactly why the universe liked fucking with him like this. After staring blankly at his desk for a minute or two, Jim decided that there was no time like the present to go and see Blair Sandburg, who had chosen, out of the more than two hundred and fifty million people living in the United States, to live among the two hundred and twenty thousand people of Macpherson.

The HPRC was tucked into the back offices of a small high-rise of vaguely fifties vintage. There was a cramped reception space crammed with filing cabinets, a couple of chairs and a desk, behind which a middle-aged woman was frowning over a computer monitor. Jim approached her, his badge ready in a sweaty hand.

"I'm Detective Ellison, MCPD."

The woman smiled politely. "Hi. Blair warned me that we'd probably be hearing from you after what happened to poor Doug Williams. Just a minute."

She rose from her chair and poked her head in the doorway behind her. "Blair, the police have arrived." The police were swallowing hard and wondering what Blair looked like these days. Jim heard Blair's familiar voice call out, "Come in, sorry, I'm just wrestling with the printer," and he went in and shut the door with a sense of relief. He didn't want the woman as audience.

His first thought was, "My god, he's cut his hair." There was still enough of it to wave luxuriantly; the back of it brushed against the collar of the shirt Blair was wearing. Blair finally looked up and gaped. Then he blushed a dull red colour as he recovered his self-possession. An amused, brittle smile broke across his face.

"Hey. Jim. Looks like fate is indulging in a little keister kicking, huh?" Blair rose from behind his desk and stepped out into the middle of what was a very cramped office. Jim put out his hand, intending one of those hearty two-handed shakes. He wasn't hugely surprised when Blair bypassed that in favour of a hard, quick hug. Jim let his hands rest gently on Blair's shoulders.

Blair stepped back and grinned with more genuine amusement. "You son of a bitch. You knew it was me before you got here, didn't you?"

"I'm a cop. When I saw the name 'Sandburg', I naturally investigated."

"Oh, naturally. What are you doing in Macpherson?"

"Being gainfully employed. Kind of like you."

Blair's smile turned glib. "Employment is good. It's - uh - it's good to see you again, man. Although the circumstances are definitely crappy."

"They are at that." But it was still good to see Blair again.

"Yeah, well, take a seat, Jim." There was a nondescript visitor's chair, blue upholstery flecked with grey and green, forty bucks at the office supplies store. Jim settled into it, thinking that at least Blair didn't have to move any files off it.

Blair took a long look at him and with a clear effort returned to business. "So, are you doing those tick sheet things or do you want a full statement?"

"I've got a sheet, but if you want to provide something in your own words, that's fine too. I'll let you know if I see gaps."

"Uh, yeah. And I cast my mind back to the good old days in Cascade and I took some copies of files for you to take away. If you need anything else just let me know."

"Sounds fine. But let's start with the basics. You employed Douglas Williams for some research work over the summer vacation?"

Blair nodded. "Yeah. I got to know him because I was involved in identifying the site out at Mr Bruere's property, and I was sort of liaison with the dig people when they heard of it."

Jim took notes and asked questions and all the while he felt a weird absence which he comprehended even if it was totally unexpected. When Blair had been in Cascade Jim had been a full sentinel, and he realised now just how much he'd imprinted Blair on his senses without even realising it. His memory insisted that something more was there to be found than Blair's simple presence in the room, but he couldn't grasp it, like reaching out with a phantom limb.

Blair handed over the file he'd made, and cocked his head at Jim. "Maybe it's a little early in the day for lunch, but is a hard-working cop allowed to take a coffee break?" His face was hopeful and a little nervous, and knowing exactly how that felt, Jim said, "A quick break won't screw regulations."

"Great. There's a place down the road - they serve baklava to die for, and the coffee's good too." Blair opened the door. "Hey, Joan, I'm going out in search of caffeine." Joan's eyebrow rose. "Don't look like that. I'm killing two birds with one stone - assisting the police and catching up with an old friend." He turned to Jim. "Come on, man. Clearly I'm on notice here." Joan shook her head, and lowered it to concentrate on her work, hiding a smile Jim suspected.

"I'm gone at 12.30, remember," she called.

"There will be no undue stresses placed on the budget," Blair growled from the back of his throat. Clearly it was a shared joke, because Joan finally cracked into giggles.

The open-framed stairwell echoed to the sound of their feet as Jim said "I hope this baklava is worth playing hooky for, Sandburg."

"The baklava is ambrosial, Jim. Besides, you can review those files with me, and you won't be wasting the City dollar."

"My end of year bonus is safe, then?" Jim asked.

"You guys get bonuses? Out of my taxes?" Blair's face creased in mock umbrage.

The easy small talk felt good, as did walking down the street with Blair Sandburg by his side. In twenty minutes two years had melted away - more than two years. One thing was different though. "You cut your hair."

"Yeah, but," and Blair flicked a finger under his earlobe, where a small stud shone, "I reinstated the jewellery. And what I save on conditioner I can spend on portable property."

"Or coffee and baklava."

"You got it," Blair replied and held the door to the eatery open while he gestured Jim through, as a waft of delicious scent flowed out.

"Smells good."

"Yeah, the smell's practically a snack on its own." Blair took on a look of concentration. "Your senses are okay?"

Jim paid close attention to the price list on the wall. "The senses are no trouble, Sandburg."

"Good, that's good, man. And just order the baklava. Trust me on this."

Jim decided that he could take a hint. He ordered the baklava and coffee, and he and Blair sat at a solid wooden table.

"So. Of all the Resource Centres in the all the world, huh." Blair grinned. "I presume that I'm a suspect."

Jim shrugged. "Only on the basis that at this point everybody's a suspect. Williams seems to have been a nice guy - good son, good student. Makes it harder. But I don't think it likely you'll move onto the list of people needing closer investigation."

"That's a relief," Blair said, before his face slipped into an expression of gustatory ecstasy with the first forkful of food. Jim acknowledged it wasn't bad, and savoured the honey-soaked pastry.

"I think I have a reasonable idea of what you are and aren't capable of." Jim immediately castigated himself as a moron, a complete idiot.

Blair's head was down, as his hands chased crumbs across his plate. "You reckon, do you? I dunno, Jim. People can surprise you."

There was an awkward pause before Jim asked, "Got your cell phone?" Watching Blair's familiar face across the table, Jim had decided to fuck right back with the universe.

Blair looked a little startled. "Yeah."

"Fine. Put my number in it then." Jim reeled it off, took note of Blair's number in return. Not that he couldn't get it from the database. He thumbed through the files Blair had given him and asked a couple of questions. The files were as complete and concise as he might have expected.

"I'd better get back to work," Blair said.

"Yeah. I'll give you a call. After all this time we should hang out, catch up a little." Jim watched as Blair stood, brushed at the few flakes of pastry that had landed across his shirtfront. Blair looked at him for a moment, his expression blankly unreadable. Then he smiled and nodded, and Jim felt a surge of relief.

"Yeah, that'd be good. There's a - uh - a Jags game being televised later this week. We could get all nostalgic. Have beer and popcorn. I could flick popcorn at the tv when the ref makes a bad call."

Jim had also stood by now. "This would mean we'd be at your place, then."

Blair laughed. "Some things truly do not change."

"You bet they don't. If I can, I will. Depends on how the case goes."

"Let me know. And if you need anything else for the case, too. Like you said, Doug was a nice guy."

"Yeah." Jim indicated that he'd parked further back, and Blair lifted his hand in one of his doofusy half waves, before he turned to head back to his building. Jim stopped to look in a realtor's window, just for an excuse to look back. He could make Blair out among other pedestrians. Blair also turned, just for a second, but Jim couldn't make out his expression. He wondered if Blair expected that Jim could see his face, and sighed. He flexed the envelope of Blair's notes in his hands. The good old days. Yeah, right.

***

Jim always found Blair's exaggerated efforts at patience obnoxious. Most likely because a patient Blair was a Blair who'd unchangeably made up his mind, and Jim didn't want to hear this decision.

"Jim, how the hell did you talk Simon into this? Because, not that I'm not - well - incredibly moved, but it's not going to fly. You have to know that."

Jim bunkered down in the yellow armchair. "Why won't it work?" he asked belligerently.

"Come on, man. I've just called myself a liar and a fraud all over the tv and you're asking me why I can't be a cop? I can't put you and Simon in that sort of position."

"It'll die down. God knows that nobody in my family is going to be feeding the press. And Major Crimes will close ranks."

Blair sighed and pushed his hair back from his face. "The thin blue line in action." He was pale and exhausted-looking. "Jim, this whole thing - with me in your face - it hasn't been working for you. I mean - Alex and Mexico, and now this. You have decent control over your senses now - how much have you needed me to help out recently? It was coming to its natural end and this is just more of a period to it all than we anticipated."

Jim considered how certain things that came all too naturally to him, such as a reticence that was essentially the unlit blue touch paper of a firecracker, might have looked to Blair the last few months. Natural end. Period. "You're going to get out of Cascade, aren't you? Ride off into the sunset."

"That makes me sound like a hero. I don't feel like much of a hero right now."

"You don't think that giving up your reputation and career, and your - home is heroic?"

Blair laughed, a short, hard explosion of breathy un-humour. "It was purely panic-stricken, Jim, and it didn't really solve anything, and you getting Simon's backing to offer me a badge was just the same thing, and it won't solve anything either." He came and crouched in front of Jim's chair. "Whatever you think about me, or about being a sentinel, you really like being a cop. And I nearly took that away from you because I'm a flake and a moron and son of a flake and a moron." The insult to Naomi was an additional abasement that Jim didn't need from his friend. "And if I hadn't panicked maybe I'd have better options now. But you totally weren't ready to be outed as a sentinel and I think that says a few things about what my choices have to be here." Blair's voice was edgy, and while his face was tilted up to Jim's, that usual earnest Sandburg stare kept sliding away. It reminded Jim of the parents he saw out and about in Cascade, explaining with words of one syllable care why little Johnny couldn't have any more ice-cream.

Jim felt like he was drowning. He leaned down to cup Blair's face in his hands, pressed their foreheads together in angry despair. Words were on the tip of his tongue, harsh accusations that Blair was using all this noble self-sacrifice as a cover for his own anger with Jim. Maybe Blair would have had better options if Jim hadn't pushed him away through all this. And now Blair was making decisions on his own again, and letting Jim find out after the fact, again. Blair balanced himself against the arms reaching to him, before standing and leaving Jim's face cold, unsheltered.

"It won't be so bad. I'll stay in contact, and if you need any help with the sentinel thing, you just have to say the word. I'll drop everything, no problem." And Blair was as good as his word. He wasn't the one who let the gaps fall between phone calls and emails. He wasn't the one who 'forgot' to pass on his address when he moved. It wasn't so unusual for friends to fall out of touch. By then Jim didn't need Blair's help anyway, because he was as ordinary a man as he could be. He'd thought it would hurt less that way; but it only hurt differently.

***

"Hey, Sandburg."

"Jim. Is this official?" Blair's voice over the phone was welcoming despite the terseness of his words, and Jim felt warmed far beyond any apparent intention of the simple greeting.

"Half and half. Business first. Roy Hautler. How did you end up employing him?"

"I was working to a tight time frame for some surveys I had to get done - some committee meeting that got moved up. Doug mentioned his name because he knew him through the war-gaming club they both belonged to, and he knew that Roy needed some extra income. Is he a suspect?"

"Just tying all my information together, Sandburg."

"Shit, you are looking at him."

Jim sighed. "I'm looking at everybody right now." But he'd already marked Hautler as too nervous and jumpy. Maybe Mr Hautler had another reason to be nervous around the cops. He had a couple of DUI convictions in his past, but that didn't account for an evasive manner in talking about almost everything. Roy Hautler had a secret. Jim wanted to know what sort of secret.

"Does he count as a friend of yours, Chief?" The old nickname slipped out without thought.

"No, he's just an acquaintance. I guess I'm out of practice with being caught up in a crime investigation."

"Can't say that I'm sorry about that. Basketball in company still okay for tonight?"

"Ah, we're off business and onto pleasure." There was no innuendo in the comment, but Jim felt a jolt in his gut anyway. "Yeah, sure. Be like old times."

Not if I can help it, Jim thought, and said, "Game at your place, then. And Sandburg - it's Miller time. None of that boutique crap."

"Philistine," was the parting shot before the call ended.

The jolt in Jim's gut had turned to a quiet roil of anticipation and anxiety combined. If he'd learned one thing over the years, it was surely that revisiting dead and gone friendships and relationships was almost always dumb. Stupid. Pointless. Often leading to mortal unpleasantness. Yes, but this was Blair. Who was mouthy and smart and tolerant and generous and above all, forgiving. Jim put his hopes in that fact and their shared love of beer and basketball.

Blair's apartment was small, but still bigger than the tiny room he had under Jim's stairs, and so somewhat less cluttered. Blair had gone all out and made nachos, on the nervously-explained basis that Jim might not have had time to eat dinner. Jim had indicated that no explanation for good food was necessary and fallen on it like the starving man he was, while Blair watched with benevolent amusement. "It's the low fat sour cream. Just so as you know. Wouldn't want to pull a fast one on you." Jim had genially waved one finger at Blair's broad grin, his mouth too full to verbally riposte.

The two of them settled into their seats, Jim on the small couch, Blair in an armchair. The Jags had taken a commanding lead, and Jim took a toilet break in the confidence that he wasn't going to miss anything important. Besides, he was trying to figure out how the evening was going, and he found it oddly comforting to do that while looking at Blair's all-natural, guaranteed parabens-free shampoo and body wash, and noting that he still used that dun-coloured oatmeal soap and a natural bristle nail-brush.

There was tension in Blair which he supposed was hardly a surprise, for all of Blair's apparent easy welcome of Jim's reappearance in his life. Not that he didn't often recall Blair as being tense. Tense like a dog scenting something irresistible on the wind; quivering like an arrow in the wood of its target. But this was different. Jim sighed. Maybe if he was still on-line...but that was just a pipe-dream. He'd been as online as he'd ever been through a variety of interpersonal disasters. Whatever the senses were good for, figuring out people's inner landscapes never had been part of it.

He went back to the living room. Blair's legs were sprawled out in front of him, and Jim had to climb over them to make the direct route to his own seat. Blair's face was relaxed as he smiled a vague apology up at Jim, the tautness that had been there earlier seemingly gone. Jim was tempted as he briefly straddled Blair to lean down and rest his hands on the arms of the chair and plant a kiss on his friend. But that was too far to go for now. It was enough tonight to get back into Blair's life after the follies and separation of the last couple of years.

They were letting the noise and colour of the inter-game advertising wash over them when Blair asked, "How come you left Cascade?"

Jim shrugged. "It just didn't fit any more. Time to move on."

"Just how bad did it get, Jim? I saw one article in the news about some shake-up at the department, and I always did wonder if it was IA getting their panties in a bunch. And you never came back to me about it when I asked." Blair was reproving.

"I couldn't really have told you that much, anyway."

"True enough, I guess."

Jim eyed Blair, who had one hand loosely wrapped around a beer bottle and was idly rubbing his thumb up and down the neck.

"And what's your life story? Last I heard, you were in Southern California."

"Some old friends needed a hand with their restaurant. I can busboy with the best of them, and I got free board as well. The work was sociable, but not totally stimulating, you know, and I heard about the Heritage Resource Centre up here - and here I am."

"Yeah," Jim said, and took a swig of beer. "Here we are."

***

Two major scandals in Narcotics and IA, both of them tied to the team of Ellison and Sandburg, had left their mark as far as good will within the department was concerned. And Jim was still struggling with his senses in the wake of Blair's departure. He kept hearing this irregular but continuous `thunk' at odd times and odd places in the building. He finally identified it as the sound of darts hitting the board in the Narcotics Ready Room, which doubled as an unofficial break room half the time. It was an annoying sound, and while he knew that he couldn't ask the guys to stop using the board, he decided to check it out, try and figure out just why this particular noise of all of them in the station was the one that grated on his nerves.

Discovering that some bright spark had decorated the board with a blown-up photocopy of Blair's headshot from the Cascade Herald tipped Jim's irritation into rage. It had ended with Harry Dupont getting stitches, and Jim getting a three day suspension and a rebuke on his official record, and one of the harshest reamings he'd ever received from Simon.

Simon had wound down eventually. "Damn it, Jim. I don't need this right now. The way that cops close ranks can lead to some crappy deals - that Narcotics mess with Tommy Yuan and his cronies was one of them, but if Dupont isn't willing to keep his mouth shut, you could be sitting at the wrong end of the court room."

Jim stared off into the middle distance. "I'm sorry, sir."

"So am I. I liked Sandburg, but there are a couple of vultures who jumped on that press conference and have been making my life hell about his ride-along and your record by association. Not his fault or yours, just damn politics. And beating the crap out of Detective Dupont is not helping."

"No, sir."

"Get out of here. If I'm about to break the regs about smoking in public buildings I don't want you seeing it."

"No, sir." Jim stood, and then turned before he was quite out the door. "Simon, I'm sorry." He paused for a moment. "Would it take some of the heat off if I wasn't around?"

Simon glared over the top of his spectacles. "What would take the heat off is you - keeping - your - temper. Go home, Jim."

Jim went home. And he thought about things; a lot of things.

***

Jim reviewed the witness statements for what felt like the thousandth time. There were about thirty people that Williams had interviewed as part of the work that he'd done for the Resource Centre, and Jim was trying out the theory that somehow he might have seen or heard something that led one of those interviewees to see him as a threat. It sounded good as a theory, but any digging into the backgrounds of the good city-tax payers of Macpherson had to go carefully.

Courson looked tired. Besides working on the Williams case, she was also now assisting on Ha's rape case. Rape cases were as much fun as murder, and only marginally less pleasant than Richard Ha. She flicked a piece of paper to Jim.

"Here, another interviewee of Williams'. Elizabeth Robson. She came into the station while you were out."

Jim grunted his thanks, and looked it over. Elizabeth Robson, age seventy-two. Finely honed cop instinct acquitted her of dragging Douglas Williams, who had been 5 ft 11 and beefy, out into a muddy field. Unless she had accomplices.

It was a Saturday. Blair probably wasn't working. Blair was probably at home, and maybe he wouldn't mind helping Jim with any insights into the people that Williams had interviewed. Sometimes cases were solved on the damnedest pieces of information. Besides, he and Blair seemed to be finding a way back to the old easiness. There'd been a couple of lunches, and Blair had invited Jim to a casual pick-up game of basketball with some people he knew, joking that the mere act of showing up with Jim would see him voted MVP on the spot.

Jim gathered up his files, and then called Blair. The phone was answered by a female voice. "Sorry. I was trying to reach Blair."

"Oh, you've got him. He's just a little busy right now. Okay, here he is." The voice became a little more distant. "Blair. Call." It was an attractive voice, rich and warm, and Jim found that he was gripping his phone a little too hard.

"Helll-oo."

"It's me, Chief. Can I impose on you, get your help with reviewing statements from the people that Doug Williams interviewed?"

"Yeah, I guess. Sure. When would be a good time?"

"As soon as possible for me. I was thinking of this afternoon or evening if that's okay."

"Yeah, sure. I don't have anything planned." The grip on the phone loosened. Not a girlfriend then, that female voice, or if so, not a valued one. The ongoing train wreck of Blair's love life, soon to be put back on track courtesy of Jim's second chance.

"Good, I'll see you soon."

He gathered up the files and drove out to Blair's apartment in a nostalgic mood. He had to remind himself that this was a one-off, and an unofficial one at that. Whatever happened in the future, he had no business dragging Blair into police work, for all that it had sparked Blair's enthusiasm back in Cascade. He could hear the murmur of conversation behind Blair's door before he knocked. He frowned, and then wiped it from his face as Blair opened the door.

"No feet dragging from Macpherson's finest."

"Might as well get it out of the way." Jim stepped forward, noting a woman of about Blair's age getting up from the table.

Blair made a vague gesture. "Emmy, Jim Ellison. Jim, Emmy Tankersley." Jim gave her a civil 'yes, I am an authority figure' nod.

Emmy Tankersley was petite and comfortably well-rounded. "And this is my cue to leave you guys to get on with the official police business." She gave Jim a perfunctory smile, and kissed Blair on the cheek.

"Thanks for sharing the cake," Blair said.

"I'd be the size of a barn door if I didn't. Mom does like to hand the goodies around." She headed for the door. "She's also fond of saying that handsome is as handsome does, Blair."

Blair rolled his eyes. "I'll remember that. Good bye, Emmy."

Jim had started laying out papers, and as Blair came back from the door, he asked, "I get the feeling she's not a fan of the cops. Or am I interrupting something?"

"Only cake-eating. Emmy's just a friend. Her mother insists on sending her these wonderful confections from Vermont. Spends a fortune on freight. And then Emmy does the rounds of her friends and we all end up on sugar highs."

Jim grinned. "Fine. Now that I know Emmy's life story, let's look at this."

Blair sighed. "I'll do my best, man, but I don't know..."

They spent a couple of hours considering the lists of names and statements, to no new observations. Eventually, Blair got up and stretched, his hands folded behind his head. Jim watched the pliant line of Blair's movement, gave it careful, speculative attention.

"What? Do I have a booger sticking out or something?"

"Something." Jim leaned back, relaxed despite the disappointment that no lightning strike of insight had come out of the work.

"Be smugly mysterious then. Coffee?"

"Better be decaf."

"You used to hate that stuff."

"Things change, Sandburg."

"Yeah, I've noticed," Blair said. "You barely use the senses at all, do you?"

Any sense of relaxation fled. "No. No, I don't. That a problem?" Jim recognised his interrogator's voice.

"No." Blair spoke a shade too quickly and then spread his hands in exasperation. "Well, yes and no. I mean, of course I understand that you have to go with what works for you, and if the senses weren't working, then..." He paused, his face troubled. "But doesn't it strike you as a waste of potential -especially given that you're still a cop?"

"I do okay."

Blair's head was turned to the mugs he was organising.

"Is it so obvious?" Jim asked.

"Not as if I didn't used to pay a lot of attention to you."

"Used to?"

Blair turned, an over-bright smile on his face, and brought the coffee to the table.

"S'okay, Jim, I'm not dumping you from the social register because you're not a sentinel anymore. In some ways, it's almost like a validation. That I made the right choice in getting out. So that's okay, man, really."

The coffee was something for Jim to do with his hands but it was going down with all the comfort of acid.

"It just got too hard, Chief." `Without you' was the necessary tagline, but Jim swallowed it along with some more coffee.

They both drank in silence, and then Blair asked, "The investigation isn't going anywhere, is it? Does that mean that Roy Hautler is off the hook?"

Jim sighed. Technically, Blair was a suspect as much as Hautler, but Hautler was where Jim's money would go. If being nervous around the cops were the only requirement for a warrant then policing would be a lot easier.

"Do you know why he needed the work he did for you?"

Blair shrugged. "He was between jobs. I didn't really ask."

"He was fired for pilfering from his employer. The guy didn't want the fuss of a court case, so he just let Hautler go."

"Being a thief doesn't make you a murderer."

"Word is that Hautler gambles, owes money in some places where default might damage more than just his credit rating."

Blair snickered. "You don't expect me to get morally outraged over that, do you?"

"Not everyone has your talent for winning more than they lose, Chief." Jim's voice sharpened more than he intended. "And I don't need sentinel senses to know when something is hinky."

"Sorry, I don't mean to impugn the mighty cop instincts." Blair's face turned wistful. "Tell you, you used to joke about the Sandburg zone. I had a little private joke going on the sentinel zone. That was a wild ride. I'm not used to thinking about people that I know as murder victims and suspects any more. So what if Hautler is less than honest. Why would he kill his friend?"

"Somebody did. And do I have to quote you the stats on the likelihood of being killed by someone you know, as opposed to some random psycho?"

"Don't quote stats to me, man. You and I bucked them the worst way." Blair picked up the mugs, took them to the sink. He turned and leaned back against the counter. He had the look of a man about to make a confession.

"Jim, you know that anything, anything I did by the end was because I cared what happened to Jim Ellison the man, not Jim Ellison the sentinel? You do know that, don't you?"

Jim stood. "Might as well put those cups away, Chief. Where do you keep a dishtowel?"

Blair was still looking at him, watching and waiting.

"Yeah, Sandburg. I know. The press conference wasn't that subtle." He lifted one eyebrow, hoped that Blair would accept his pathetic joking tone. To his relief, Blair chuckled.

"You're impossible."

"That can't be news." He surely was impossible and on the verge of screwing this up yet again. Jim started walking across what seemed like acres of floor to where Blair still leaned against the counter, watching Jim's progress. Finally, Jim cupped his hands across the back of Blair's neck, let his thumbs rub gently just behind Blair's ears. Blair permitted the touch, although his face was quizzical.

"I think I got the message when I saw you in front of those damn cameras. So I can't say I like the idea that anything I've said would `validate' you leaving me." Blair opened his mouth, clearly offended. "I know, for good reasons."

Blair had put on the armour of a defiant glare. "You left too, Jim. You left too."

It was maybe a little late for armour, Jim thought. After all, who better than him to know what sort of thin skin hid beneath it? He kept up the gentle rubbing of Blair's scalp, used his hold against Blair's nape to anchor himself that little more securely. "Yeah. I did. I'm sorry. Can I come back?" He lowered his head, touched his lips to Blair's. Blair was so still that for one terrified moment Jim thought he'd made a catastrophically stupid mistake, and then with a small sigh, Blair's mouth opened, and his arms reached across Jim's back to hold tight. At first Blair was merely accepting of the kiss, but by the end he held Jim's face between his hands and attended to Jim's mouth with sweetly tender obsession.

Jim drew back to take a breath and get a good look at Blair's face. It was flushed, and his eyes were big and dark, and he looked - beautiful.

"Don't think I've seen your bedroom."

"It's a mess."

"Can we get to the bed without taking a flying leap?"

Blair ran the back of his index finger along Jim's jaw.

"Should be manageable."

"Then it's perfect. Come on." Blair shook his head, but he was smiling. "Come on." Jim nuzzled his way along Blair's neck and for the first time in two years he truly regretted the absence of heightened senses. He could have felt and tasted and smelled so much more - and he felt pleasantly intoxicated now. Blair pulled away but only to lead the way to the bedroom. He opened the door with a wry smile and said, "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Jim didn't give a damn about the clutter, and he didn't want Blair to either. They were in Blair's room, Blair's space filled with Blair's belongings, where everything smelled of Blair, and Jim pulled the man himself onto the bed and kissed him a little more. He sat up and dragged off his shirt and Blair pulled his own t-shirt over his head, before he ran his palms over Jim's chest. Jim shut his eyes. They sat on the mattress while Blair touched Jim, put his mouth on Jim's skin, placed his hand at Jim's groin. Jim groaned, and he felt Blair's lips move in what felt like a smile.

"Lie down, Jim." It was a whisper, as Blair pushed at Jim's shoulders. Jim obeyed, laid his suddenly sensitised skin against the sheets of the bed while Blair's hands worked at the fastenings of his pants. "Lift your hips. Yeah, that's it." Blair left Jim's clothes halfway down his legs while he ran his hands up Jim's thighs and then up and down his flanks. Jim hungrily tilted his hips and Blair laughed a little. "Yeah, you're beautiful. Didn't ever tell you that before. But you are." He lay beside Jim and propped himself on an elbow and took him into his mouth.

"God." Such a sweet mouth on his cock, such a fucking beautiful mouth. He placed one hand gently on Blair's head, not pushing, just tracing out the shape of Blair's skull beneath his palm. Blair shuddered and took Jim that little deeper, drew back and played his tongue over Jim's cock with even more fervour, before lunging down yet again. "That's good. That's so good." Blair's fingers played with Jim's balls, which rode tight and high under Jim's hard-on, while that warm, beautiful mouth kept working him. "Gonna lose it, Blair. Gonna come soon." It was beyond him to offer any further warning, but Blair didn't seem to care. Blair braced his free hand on Jim's hip and then sucked hard and Jim - lost it, came in his friend's mouth with a deep wordless noise.

"Jesus." He blinked dazedly, slackly unmoving.

"I don't think so." Blair shifted to clumsily shuck off his jeans and underwear, before he pulled Jim's clothes away and dropped them at the foot of the bed. He crawled back up the bed and lay upon Jim almost gingerly. His skin touched Jim's with a wave of heat, and Jim's body cast off confusion and concentrated on what was being offered.

"I'm not fragile, Chief."

Blair nibbled delicately on Jim's right shoulder. "Shut up. I'm savouring here."

Fine, Jim thought, savour this, and took two handfuls of Blair's ass, grinned to himself at the hitch of breath the action produced. Blair's hips bucked and he looked ludicrously surprised, as if he hadn't expected to feel so good. He felt good to Jim too. He remembered the first time he'd touched Blair like this, his mild surprise at how smooth the skin was.

"What do you want, Chief? You want me to go down on you?"

Blair's face was hidden again in the crook of Jim's neck. "I always appreciated your `solid' personality, Jim. Just stay right where you are, man." He rubbed his cock against Jim, the movement roughly rhythmic, slowly smoothed by sweat and pre-come. A little uncomfortable that this was all Blair wanted from him, Jim travelled his hands over Blair's skin, no longer urgent in his own need, but still pleasantly abuzz with the pleasure of his orgasm. Blair's weight blanketed him; he liked the sense of shelter. Blair lifted up from his sprawl and awkwardly took Jim's head between his hands once more, pressed Jim's head into the pillows with the pressure of his mouth. His body's movements grew more pronounced , but his mouth barely moved from Jim's, not even for breath, until the wet heat of semen splashed against Jim's skin. "Fuck," Blair finally moaned, and Jim smiled. Eventually, he thought, as he petted Blair down from the heights. It was a new thought, but not an unwelcome one.

***

Tuesday, and Jim was frustrated. Schreiber was getting pressure over the Williams killing, which he'd passed on to his detectives as a matter of form. There was a cynical acknowledgement in the department that middle-class white boys getting shot always seemed to rouse more citizenly concern than some of the other crimes on the roster. Plus he hadn't seen Blair since Sunday afternoon. Thinking of Sunday afternoon led to thoughts of Sunday morning, of waking up with Blair wrapped around him, Blair's erect cock prodding against his hip. So when the phone went, he braced himself for more frustration.

"Jim, it's me."

"Sandburg. Calling to solve my case for me?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

Jim was instantly on the alert. "Okay, lay out what you think you've got."

"Elizabeth Robson. She wasn't on Doug Williams' list, so why should she have spoken to him? It was bothering me and I finally checked my files and she was on Roy Hautler's list, not Doug's. But maybe it doesn't mean anything."

"And maybe it does. You're at your office? I'm coming over now."

Blair was pacing the small reception area when Jim arrived.

"I've laid out the lists. It's probably nothing, man, but it's not like I don't know the official mind-set."

"Maybe it's nothing. But first we talk to Mrs Robson. You as well as me. I have a picture of Doug Williams. Do you have anything identifying Roy Hautler?"

Blair nodded. "We had photo i.d.s done, and Joan put them all away in case we ended up using them for any future work."

"Bring them and your list. If this is nothing then we can deal with it right now."

Elizabeth Robson's house was in an older, and now gentrified part of Macpherson. She was a tall, plump woman who offered coffee with a certain amount of hauteur. She confirmed that she had never filled out any surveys from the Heritage Protection Resource Centre, and never seen Roy Hautler, but had been visited by the young man whose death had featured in the papers. "And I can assure you," she said with pride, "that there is nothing wrong with my memory."

"I can see that, Ma'am. And we very much appreciate you coming forward." Jim felt the satisfying mental 'click' of pieces falling into place. He'd wanted to know Roy Hautler's secrets and now he knew almost all of them. He and Blair walked back to the car.

"Always wondered what your country club manners looked like." Blair's face was animated, maybe a little too animated. He checked his papers. "Nearest address from here is a Mr Thomas Wyeth." He muttered under his breath. "I told Meacham that the survey was too skewed towards the richer parts of town, but no, he had to have a good class of property-owners represented."

Wyeth was out. Of the thirty names on the list they visited another seven, and spoke to five people. All of them confirmed that they had never received any call from Roy Hautler, or filled out any survey. Two of them recalled a visit from Douglas Williams.

It was early evening by then. "Office or home, Chief?"

"Home."

"You're pretty quiet there."

"Do you know how much I paid Roy Hautler to do that survey? Which it looks like he didn't do. About a hundred and fifty dollars plus gas allowance." Blair's voice shook with anger. "If he - if he killed Doug, then he killed him over two hundred dollars. Fucking two hundred dollars, man."

"Wouldn't be the first time someone cracked for a small thing. Hautler owes big money. He could have flown to the moon as well as paid back two hundred bucks."

"I mean, god, we all sat in my office, working out the procedure, drinking coffee and bitching about the weather. Hautler was ribbing Doug about some game he beat him at."

"We've both been here before, Blair. Figuring out that murder sucks."

"Oh, that's deep, Jim. But you're right. It sucks big time."

Jim pulled up outside Blair's building. "You going to be okay?"

Blair's face was set with shock, his eyes sparkling with strong emotion. "I'll be fine. I'll have a shower, maybe meditate a little." His mouth quirked. "Take a good stiff drink. Just as well I didn't take up that career offer that you and Simon made."

"You would have been great."

Blair smiled, but he wasn't looking at Jim. "Yeah, sure. Sure. Jim, do you think that if you'd had the senses to use that this case would have gone any differently?"

Jim felt his face stiffen.

"Assuming that Hautler's the man, probably not. I might have scented him on the tarpaulin that Williams was wrapped in. Might have focused on him a little sooner. But that wouldn't have been enough connection for warrants. What we have this afternoon is."

"What about other cases, man?"

"I think you're underestimating the power of modern forensics. And Macpherson doesn't seem to attract the high-profile crazies that Cascade did. Just 'normal' crime, Sandburg, for a normal cop."

"Nothing normal about you, Jim. Never was." There was a sad tenderness in Blair's face that took some of the sting out of his words. He moved to get out of the car, and Jim caught at his arm.

"Chief. I tried to look at it the way you did, the senses being some big cosmic gift. And yeah, they had their uses - but you were the main good thing that came out of them as far as I was concerned."

"Two compliments in one day from James Ellison." Blair grinned briefly before he turned once again to leave the car. "The planets must be in alignment." He bent to look at Jim before he shut the door. "I know you'll be busy. Call me when you're free."

Jim drove back to Central, his mind shuttling between two threads of thought: the reports and paperwork he needed to do, the fence of legalities and regulations that would put Hautler where Jim wanted him; and the number of times the last few weeks that Blair Sandburg seemed to not look Jim in the face. One thing he remembered from the years in Cascade was the way that Blair was focused on James Joseph Ellison, always in his face to an annoyingly literal point sometimes.

So he's not a kid to hero-worship you anymore, Ellison, he told himself, and you're no super-hero. Doesn't mean that the two of you can't work things out. Second chance, he reminded himself. How many people got one? He thought of the weekend, let the memories warm and stir him. Sentinel senses weren't the only thing that turned Blair Sandburg on. It'd be okay. But first he had to go after Hautler.

***

"You were right about Hautler."

"He caved pretty quickly. But then, I'd just pointed out what a wonderful chemical luminol is. God, I love that stuff." Jim collected the last strands of spaghetti onto his fork while he stretched his legs out under the table, incidentally rubbing against his companion's legs. He watched Blair across the table: Jim's companion, his friend, his lover. Blair had sounded tired when Jim had called to invite him over, almost diffident. Once at Jim's home he'd been thoughtful, yes, but quietly talkative and joking as always. Jim had grown so used to having Blair in his space in Cascade, charting how his mercurial friend's moods swung this way and that. The negotiations of whose apartment and, increasingly he hoped, whose bed felt weird to him. Jim wondered what Blair would say if he broached the idea of them living together. Wasn't as if they hadn't done it before. He smiled.

"Gloating in unseemly cop triumph?"

"Nothing unseemly about it, Chief. The bastard'll get what's coming to him."

Blair moved his shoulders as if to shrug off a burden. "There's that. I went to Doug's funeral. Sat at the back. I didn't see you there."

"Courson went."

Jim had invited Blair to his place for what he thought of as a celebratory dinner, even if he knew that some people might see that as an attitude in bad taste. He supposed that maybe he ought to feel some sympathy for Roy Hautler on the basis that he'd been a stupid bastard too sometimes. He supposed it, but he didn't feel it.

What he did feel was simple satisfaction at the solving of a case, and simple desire for the man sitting across the table from him. It had taken him a long time to identify the objective, but he had it in his sights now; with pin-point accuracy.

"Wanna help me load the dishwasher?"

Blair smirked. "Maybe. What happens if I drop the soap?"

"You clean it up pronto, Sandburg. That caustic shit is hell on surfaces." Blair laughed, and stood to take his plate to the kitchen. Jim followed, admiring Blair's loose, relaxed stride, the square, angular line of his back and shoulders.

Cleaning up a kitchen perhaps wasn't traditional seduction, but if it was done with plenty of smiles and kisses, and 'accidental' touches then Jim thought it might work as well as any other method. The dishwasher was softly humming when Jim put an arm around Blair's shoulders and pulled him in tight. Blair's hands threaded into his hair, and Jim felt the tension in his friend's shoulders as he reached into the offered kiss, before he ended it with a gentle nip against Jim's lower lip.

"Stay the night." Jim hoped his expression was encouraging and not too goofily lustful. "I have a spare toothbrush in the bathroom," he added in hopeless inducement.

Blair's face had turned thoughtful. "Kind of different to when we started this, isn't it?" Blair asked. "In Cascade. Pretending it wasn't happening." He generously didn't mention that Jim initiated most of the pretending.

"That was a bad year." Jim ran a caressing hand along Blair's back, let it slide down to his ass. "I think that this one is going to be better." Much, much better. Any year that contained events like the little shiver that Blair made under his hands had to be a good one, so Jim set to creating more of those shivers. And yeah, some moans, they were good too. They made it to the bedroom, and Jim decided that Blair's hands and mouth owning his skin also made for a good year.

Blair had vetoed any light stronger than the dull overflow from the living area through the open door, and Jim wished that he could see more of Blair than a shadowed shape, or the occasional glint of eyes and teeth. But then Blair urged Jim onto his front and kissed and licked his way across his shoulders and ribs while strong hands rubbed across the small of Jim's back. Blair moved a little further down, adjusted his weight across Jim's legs and spread his hands across Jim's ass. Jim sighed, rubbed his cock against the sheets and waited.

Blair's hands wandered into the cleft between his cheeks, and Jim smiled. "You can if you want. You want to fuck me, Chief?" Blair's hand shifted until the palm rested across Jim's buttocks, rather than between, then it was gone altogether.

"I...I can't do this."

Jim suppressed disappointment and a little fear. That wasn't the tone of a man about to suggest some sixty-nine as an alternative. There was only silence before Blair got out of bed and dragged on the jeans which Jim had so hopefully helped him take off not so long ago.

He walked aimlessly up and down the carpet, running his hand through hair that was already a mess. "I can't do this anymore, man. Not that it hasn't been - incredible, an absolute trip, but I just can't." He laughed shakily. Jim sat up in the bed and draped the sheet across his lower body, reached out to switch on the lamp. He'd thought that he was finally getting this thing right, at long last, and now the fault-line of Blair's distress was shaking his complacency at about eight on the Richter scale.

"It's traditional to get laid before you cut and run, Sandburg." It was supposed to sound - amused, jaded - but Jim could hear the anger in his voice.

"Oh, I think that you've made enough sacrifices, Jim."

Jim was fast losing his temper, and only the sheer misery in Blair's face as he looked back towards the bed held the last pieces of his control in place. "What fucking sacrifice? What the hell are you talking about? I thought we were fine."

"Yeah, we're fine. Everything goes on fine, except when it's not fine. You'll trust me, until you don't trust me." Blair took a deep, shuddery breath. "I screw up, man. And you don't deal so well with screw-ups. And what happens then?"

"Jesus, you're the last person I would have expected a pre-emptive break-up from. People can change, Blair." Jim was about to say more but Blair forestalled him.

"I haven't. Stupid."

That was enough. Jim climbed out of the bed. Blair watched him with obvious desire and longing, and Jim took his time about putting on a robe. Physical nakedness was easy, and he'd use any weapon he had to swat whatever maggot had got into Blair's brain. Jim put out a hand to Blair, but Blair shook his head. Instead he fumbled for his shirt, which was still on the floor, and dragged it on, not doing it up but huddling into it.

Jim took a breath. "So, how are you stupid?"

"Maybe not stupid. But - man..." Blair marshalled his thoughts with a visible effort, and Jim took a chance on his distraction to push him to sit on the bed, and Blair went with him like an unresisting automaton. "I don't think of myself as somebody who holds grudges. You process and you let go and you get on with things. That's the plan."

"So what are you saying? You gave everything up for a sentinel and I'm not one anymore?" It made sense given Blair's occasional needling about Jim giving up on the senses. Jim could understand that. He'd nursed grudges for years, part and parcel of the same aspects of himself that didn't let go of the memory of friends and lovers - with disastrous results yet again, it seemed.

"No, no. It's not that at all."

After yet another heavy silence, Jim said, "Not like you to not be able to talk, Chief."

"I told you that I loved you." And Jim remembered it, those low desperate words. "And then two weeks later you could tell me that you thought that I could sell you out. And I completely understand how you could think that in the circumstances, and I thought I'd worked it through, and then you're back acting like love's fucking young dream and it's like all the crap never happened, except that it did."

Jim wiped a hand over his face. "You know, Sandburg, I get the impression that all that processing and understanding hasn't worked for you. So why don't you just call me a prick son of a bitch and be done with it."

Blair stood up like a jack-in-the-box exploding off its spring. "Fine! You were a prick son of a bitch!"

"And maybe if you'd just said that two years ago a whole heap of things would be different now."

"Oh no, Ellison. Maybe the fact that I was messed up with this crap made it easier to go, but I still had to do it. The rational reasons I left still stand. And you sure as hell didn't do anything to disprove them. You're still a cop and you're living your nice normal life. No messy sentinel senses. So excuse me if I'm wondering why you make so exceedingly nice with flaky Sandburg when fate drops me back in your lap."

Jim stared at Blair, who had started pacing again during this little tirade.

"Let me get this straight. You can make enormous gestures and it's because you care, but I try to put a mistake right and guilt is my only motivation? Because I may not be some highly educated wogglebug but I think I'm seeing some sub-text here."

Blair turned to stare right back. "Wogglebug?"

Jim had well and truly had enough. "Sandburg, will you quit psychoanalysing my motives and coming up with the crackpot theories and just come back to bed?" He emphasised his desires with firm hands on Blair's rigid shoulders.

"I don't want a pity fuck."

"You don't want it, you don't have to have it. Jesus." Jim shook Blair in utter exasperation.

Blair looked sheepish, but determined as well. "So this isn't a guilt thing?"

"It's as much a guilt thing as that damn press conference."

Blair blushed a little. "I did that because I love you, man."

"What?" Jim asked gruffly. "I can't do something because I finally figured out that I love you?"

Blair tensed tighter again in Jim's hold. "And you see. I screw up again."

Jim leaned to kiss the down-turned mouth, coaxed it open. He wanted to kiss certain parts of the past away. "That's okay, Chief. I'm learning to deal with it better."

***

The nights were getting longer, and Jim woke well before sunrise. He lay there, comfortably aware that it was his day off and a Saturday as well. Blair was curled against him. Jim smugly catalogued that as the most important of the things that made him feel good, along with the comfort and warmth of the bed, the sheltering darkness of the room, the quiet rhythmic noise of Blair's heart. Blair's heartbeat; which he could hear perfectly clearly, slow and steady in the depth of Blair's sleep, despite the fact that he lay with his curly head against Jim's shoulder.

Jim turned and slipped an arm underneath Blair's neck and smiled as breath huffed against his skin. Here we go again, he thought. But he was okay with that. Some things, like Blair's presence in their shared apartment for example, were worth it.


End file.
